Press Releases

Press Releases

Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines

Monday, August 8, 2005 - 05:42

OAKLAND, Calif., Feb. 8, 2005 -- Ask Jeeves(r), Inc. (Nasdaq:ASKJ), a leading provider of information retrieval technologies, brands and Internet advertising services, today announced it has acquired Trustic, Inc., the company that owns and operates Bloglines (www.bloglines.com). Bloglines is the world's most popular free online service for searching, subscribing, publishing and sharing RSS feeds, blogs and rich web content. Bloglines will continue to operate as an independent brand in the Ask Jeeves portfolio and retain its name and unique URL: www.bloglines.com.

"Bloglines is not only a market leader in feed aggregation and blog search, but it is truly one of the most useful and addictive services on the entire Web. We are excited about providing Bloglines with the resources to grow its service and help it reach a broader audience," said Jim Lanzone, Ask Jeeves' senior vice president of search properties. "Bloglines is a natural fit for our multi-brand portfolio, as we extend our information retrieval services to encompass the rapidly growing amount of dynamic content and information available in the blogosphere."

Founded in 2003, Bloglines is a pioneer in bringing RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and rich content to mainstream Internet users. Recognized as the leader in its category in terms of traffic, feature richness and ease of use, Bloglines indexes more than 280 million live web content elements-news feed and blog articles, images, audio and video-and is available in English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Bloglines has been touted for excellence around the world with many awards and accolades, including Time Magazine's 50 Coolest Websites for 2004.

"Bloglines became so popular because it was one of the first Web services to make blog and RSS feed reading free and easy to understand for average Internet users. We want to continue this quest to bring our exciting capabilities into the mainstream," said Mark Fletcher, CEO of Bloglines. "By joining forces with Ask Jeeves, we will be able to accelerate our growth with access to the millions of unique visitors to Ask Jeeves' properties. And we are eager to take advantage of Ask Jeeves' support, extensive resources, operational scale and innovative technologies to expand and improve the services we deliver to users." Fletcher will join Ask Jeeves as vice president and general manager of Bloglines.

The acquisition brings together complementary technology assets, including Bloglines' leading RSS aggregation capabilities and Ask Jeeves' world-class Teoma algorithmic search technology. Ask Jeeves plans to leverage these technologies across its search and portal brands, and as of today, Bloglines' Web search capability will be powered by Ask Jeeves' search technology.

"The Ask Jeeves search advantage is based on world-class technical innovation and a user-centric approach," continued Lanzone. "It is exciting to have the opportunity to connect Bloglines' live information flow and blog search capabilities with our unique indexing technology to provide consumers with one of the most comprehensive and personal web experiences across all sources -- from the desktop to the Internet and, now, into the blogosphere."

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements regarding the future are forward-looking statements, including those regarding Bloglines' continued independent operations, provision of resources to it, acceleration of Bloglines' audience growth, improvement of Bloglines' services, and Ask Jeeves' plans to leverage Bloglines' technologies across its search and portal brands. The forward-looking statements in this press release are subject to numerous assumptions, risks and other uncertainties and are based on limited information available to Ask Jeeves at this time, which is subject to change. Ask Jeeves' actual results in the future might differ materially from management's current expectations. Although management's expectations might change after the date of this release, Ask Jeeves undertakes no obligation to revise or update the statements above. The lack of any revision or update is not meant to imply continued affirmation of those statements. Factors that might cause or contribute to such differences and changes include, but are not limited to: Ask Jeeves' dependence on a third-party paid placement provider; the risk that acquisitions might not be integrated successfully; the risk of further vertical consolidation in the Internet search and keyword advertising markets; risks associated with rapid technological change; risks that innovations by competitors might cause Ask Jeeves' user base to migrate to other search engines, or that Ask Jeeves search volume might otherwise decline; risks associated with relying on third parties for search toolbar distribution; the risk that companies' internet advertising budgets might contract or grow at a slower pace; Ask Jeeves' dependence on third parties for some types of content, distribution and advertising delivery; potential lack of market acceptance of Ask Jeeves' advertising products; introduction of new advertising products or search technologies by competitors; declines in the average selling price of Ask Jeeves' advertising products; and adverse economic conditions in any of the major countries or markets in which Ask Jeeves does business or to which its web content is targeted. As a relatively short announcement, this press release cannot present a full discussion of such risks. Further information on risk factors that could affect Ask Jeeves' financial results is included in its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ask Jeeves encourages investors to read all of the disclosures in its SEC filings for a broader discussion of important factors that may be material to investors and may affect Ask Jeeves' business, financial condition and results of operations.